Sweatshops

=<h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 20px; font-family: TiemposHeadline, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 2px 0px; color: rgb(25, 31, 36); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a data-ga-action="Topic: Story Headline" href="https://www.democracynow.org/2017/6/14/headlines/the_guardian_abuse_low_pay_at_ivanka_trump_indonesian_clothing_factory" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(25, 31, 36); text-decoration-line: none; border: 0px;">The Guardian: Abuse & Low Pay at Ivanka Trump Indonesian Clothing Factory</a></h3>adidas has policy<a href="http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/why-its-getting-harder-and-more-dangerous-hold-companies-accountable" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/why-its-getting-harder-and-more-dangerous-hold-companies-accountable</a><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">Texas Tech University</h3>In 2015, Texas Tech scored more than $2 million from the Charles Koch Foundation, which bankrolls the school's <a href="https://www.texasobserver.org/koch-free-market-institute-texas-tech/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Free Market Institute</a>, a privately funded think tank that also managed to siphon $1.4 million of public money from a state incentives program.Its director, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Out-Poverty-Sweatshops-Cambridge-Economics/dp/1107688930" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">sweatshop defender</a> Benjamin Powell, got his doctorate from GMU and is on the <a href="https://www.apee.org/apee-executive-committee/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">executive committee</a> of the Association of Private Enterprise Education, an organization financed in part by Koch that holds annual gatherings where Koch-funded professors, think-tank researchers and private industry representatives share strategies for founding and expanding free-market programs at colleges and universities. The Institute's board includes several Koch-linked professors from other schools including Peter Boettke of GMU, who's been a visiting scholar at the Free Market Institute and has been featuring at the Institute's "<a href="http://www.depts.ttu.edu/freemarketinstitute/pdf_files/Freedom_Entrepreneurship_Innovation_Schedule.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Weekend Exploring Liberty</a>," cohosted by IHS."Evidence of an enduring impact from this research could include observing free-market think tanks change their strategy of promoting social change to more closely mirror the findings of our research," <a href="https://www.texasobserver.org/koch-free-market-institute-texas-tech/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">wrote</a> Powell in a grant application to another private funder. "Other evidence may include pro-freedom policy makers changing their strategies to mirror the findings of our research."The Charles Koch Foundation also funds Texas Tech's Institute for the Study of Western Civilization, which co-hosted an <a href="http://www.texaspolicy.com/events/detail/western-civ-summit" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">event</a> with the right-wing, Koch-funded <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Texas_Public_Policy_Foundation" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Texas Public Policy Foundation</a> that presented a panel featuring the Koch Foundation's director of university relations and the deputy director of the Koch-funded Center for the Philosophy of Freedom at the University of Arizona.The Texas Observer <a href="https://www.texasobserver.org/koch-free-market-institute-texas-tech/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">reported</a> that the Koch Foundation made a $7.7 million long-term commitment to Texas Tech in 2016, causing significant outcry from faculty and students.<h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">Utah State University</h3>
http://www.alternet.org/environment/samsung-blame-cancers-former-employeesOMG
For Release: February 28, 2014 
Contact: Judy Kent at (703) 759-7476 or <a href="mailto:jkent@nationalcenter.org">jkent@nationalcenter.org</a> or David Almasi at (202) 543-4110 x11 or (703) 568-4727 (text enabled) or <a href="mailto:dalmasi@nationalcenter.org">dalmasi@nationalcenter.org</a><center style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> <div style="text-align: left;">Tim Cook to Apple Investors: Drop Dead </div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Apple CEO Tim Cook tells Investors Who Care More About Return on Investment than Climate Change: Your Money is No Longer Welcome </div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">As Board Member Al Gore Cheers the Tech Giant's Dedication to Environmental Activism, Investors Left to Wonder Just How Much Shareholder Value is Being Destroyed in Efforts to Combat "Climate Change" </div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Free-Market Activist Presents Shareholder Resolution to Computer Giant Apple Calling for Consumer Transparency on Environmental Issues; Company Balks</div></center> Cupertino, CA / Washington, D.C. - At today's annual meeting of Apple shareholders in Cupertino, California, Apple CEO Tim Cook informed investors that are primarily concerned with making reasonable economic returns that their money is no longer welcome.The message came in response to the National Center for Public Policy Research's shareholder resolution <a href="http://www.nationalcenter.org/Apple_Proposal_Statement_2014.pdf">asking</a> the tech giant to be transparent about its environmental activism and a question from the National Center about the company's environmental initiatives.==

<h3 style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 21.9886px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: uppercase; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;">ARGUMENTS FOR NIKE OR FOR CORPORATIONS TO ENJOY BILL OF RIGHTS PROTECTIONS</h3>

<li style=" list-style-type: square; margin: 0px 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px;">WITHIN DAYS OF OHIO REPRESENTATIVE DENNIS KUCINICH CIRCULATING A<a title="Do Corporations Have A Constitutional Right to Lie?" href="http://reclaimdemocracy.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/kucinich_nike_colleague_letters.pdf" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(188, 0, 0);">“DEAR COLLEAGUE” LETTER</a>, URGING THEM TO SIGN ON TO THE CONGRESSIONAL BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF KASKY, ALL FIVE OREGON REPRESENTATIVES–NIKE’S HEADQUARTERS–CIRCULATED A <a title="Nike vs. Kasky: the whole story" href="http://reclaimdemocracy.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/defazio_etal_nike_letter.pdf" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(188, 0, 0);">LETTER ARGUING FOR NIKE AND ASKING COLLEAGUES NOT TO SIGN ON</a>.</li></ul>

===

<div>

</div>

<div>

United Students Against Sweatshop have filed a suit against Washington, D.C., seeking an injunction to stop police from spying on the group’s activities. The lawsuit claims a police officer named Nicole Rizzi infiltrated anti-sweatshop protests after the devastating factory fire in Bangladesh that killed more than 1,100 workers in April. Activists say they were able to uncover Rizzi’s identity because she left several clues on social media sites. In a photo posted on the site YFrog, Rizzi points out a typo on a piece of mail addressed to the "DC Metropolation Police Department." Rizzi’s finger partially covers up the address line, but it appears to identify her as director of the Intelligence Branch. In a post on Rizzi’s since-deleted Tumblr account, she wrote, "In the position I’m in, it’s beneficial to wear ordinary clothes. Plainclothes assignments too, you wear what would blend in." We speak to reporter Mike Elk of In These Times magazine. He is author of the article, "Activists Identify DC Cop Who Infiltrated Bangladesh Sweatshop Protests."

TRANSCRIPT

AMY GOODMAN: We end today’s show by looking at a startling new <a href="http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/15419/exclusive_activists_identify_dc_cop_who_infiltrated_bangladesh_protesters/" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(209, 63, 41);">article</a> detailing how an undercover police officer infiltrated peaceful protests and got caught. The article is written by In These Times magazine reporter Mike Elk. It’s called "Activists Identify DC Cop Who Infiltrated Bangladesh Sweatshop Protests."

Elk writes that D.C. activists had long suspected police routinely infiltrated and spied on their protests, but until now were unable to conclusively identify any specific undercover police officer. After months of gathering evidence, attorneys Jeffrey Light and Sean Canavan worked with United Students Against Sweatshops, or USAS, to confirm the true identity of a Metro police officer named Nicole Rizzi, who had posed as a protester named "Missy." At one point, the police officer pretended to participate in a USAS protest against companies doing business in Bangladesh — companies that refused to sign the Accord on Fire and Building Safety following the death of over 1,100 Bangladeshi garment workers in the Rana Plaza factory collapse in April.

Well, on Monday, USAS filed suit against the District of Columbia seeking an injunction to stop police from spying on the group’s activities. Activists were able to uncover Nicole Rizzi’s identity, because she left several clues on social media sites. In a photo posted on the site YFrog, Officer Rizzi points out a typo on a piece of mail addressed to the "DC Metropolation Police Department." Rizzi’s finger partially covers up the address line, but it appears to identify her as director of the Intelligence Branch. On her now-deleted Twitter account, Rizzi tweeted, "They used to call me No Sweat Nico because no matter how hot it was at academy, I never sweat." And in a post on Rizzi’s since-deleted Tumblr account, she wrote, quote, "In the position I’m in, it’s beneficial to wear ordinary clothes. Plainclothes assignments too, you wear what would blend in."

Well, for more on this story, we’re joined in Washington, D.C., by reporter Mike Elk, who broke the piece in In These Times.

Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Mike. Explain how they identified this officer and what the significance of this means.

MIKE ELK: Well, I think in some ways it’s a testament to what a small town D.C. is that they were able to identify this woman. Basically, an activist had been very suspect of this woman for a number of years, seen her in a lot of meetings, at nearly every protest, but nobody seemed to know her, and she acted strange. Then, on time, I guess this activist, Lacy MacAuley, was at a bar, and somebody showed a Twitter account of this woman, and right away Lacy knew who it was, knew that this woman was Missy, and then, after scrolling through the account, began to discover this woman’s name was actually Nicole and that she was a cop, based on her describing the day-to-day routine. Then, after a matter of time, Sean Canavan and Jeffrey Light did a lot of pretty obsessive Facebook stalking and other social media stocking and found that this woman, despite being an undercover cop, could not stop talking about being a cop on Twitter and Facebook, etc., etc. And so, eventually, they were walking one day, Jeffrey Light was, and outside of a protest at Children’s Place, which refuses to sign the fire and safety accord for Bangladesh, and he spotted her, and they observed her at several other protests. So that’s how they were able to find this, and it’s some real crack work by some activists here.

</div>

<div>===

<div>google ad: </div>

<h2 style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-weight: normal; margin: 0px -35px 0px 0px; padding: 4px 4px 4px 0px;">Ad related to bangladesh clothing factory alliance accord gap<a class="gl wtall" id="wtata" jsaction="wta.tlb" data-wta-ved="0CCoQJw" data-apm-ved="0CCwQKQ" data-width="230" style=" white-space: nowrap; color: rgb(14, 28, 179); cursor: pointer;"> </a></h2>

<h3 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> <a href="http://www.bangladeshworkersafety.org/" id="vpa1" wrc_done="true" style=" color: rgb(14, 28, 179); cursor: pointer;">Bangladesh Garment Factory - BangladeshWorkerSafety.org‎</a> </h3>

<div class="kv kva ads-visurl" style=" margin-bottom: 1px; padding-top: 0px;"><cite style="color: rgb(0, 128, 42); font-style: normal;">www.bangladeshworkersafety.org/</cite></div>

Improving Garment Workers' Safety By Setting Better Safety Standards‎</div>

</div>

<div class="vsc vsta" sig="sOf" style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); position: relative; width: 512px;">is the alliance, the good guysFormer U.S. Senator George Mitchell , vs </div>

</div>

<div class="vsc vsta" sig="sOf" style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); position: relative; width: 512px;">npr: Wal-Mart and Gap joined a Bangladesh factory safety group and were immediately criticized for not joining a more stringent pact made up of mostly European retailers. Wal-Mart says the agreement requires the inspection of all subcontractor factories within a year.</div>

</div>

<div class="vsc vsta" sig="sOf" style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); position: relative; width: 512px;">But Scott Nova of the Worker Safety Consortium says the agreement falls short because it's voluntary and so it can't be enforced in court.</div>

<div class="vsc vsta" sig="sOf" style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); position: relative; width: 512px;">ZARROLI: The agreement announced today comes following a separate and more binding accord that has been signed by dozens of major European retailers, including H&M and Zara = alliance</div>

</div>

WASHINGTON - Giants of the U.S. retail clothing industry called upon two former Maine senators -- Democrat George Mitchell and Republican Olympia Snowe -- last week to help them develop new standards to improve conditions at factories in Bangladesh.

An "alliance" of apparel sellers that reportedly included NO ]The Gap and Walmart requested that the Bipartisan Policy Center convene a meeting of retailers to discuss safety standards in the aftermath of the recent building collapse that killed more than 1,100 garment workers in Bangladesh.

The retailers also specifically asked that Mitchell and Snowe -- co-founder and senior fellow, respectively, of the nonpartisan Washington think tank -- facilitate the first meeting last week in New York. Additional meetings are planned in New York and Washington, the Bipartisan Policy Center said.

--

huffpo: July 10 (Reuters) - Nearly 20 North American retailers including Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Gap Inc unveiled a 5-year safety plan for Bangladesh garment factories on Wednesday that would include inspecting every factory within a year.

The announcement in Washington by the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety on Wednesday comes after 1,129 workers were killed in the collapse of a Bangladesh garment plant in April and another 112 people perished in November fire at a Bangladesh factory.

A separate safety plan including coordinated inspections was announced by a group of mainly European brands on Monday.

A few student protesters were outside the building in Washington, where the plan was announced. The group United Students Against Sweatshops handed out fliers, saying "Gap and Walmart: Bangladeshi Workers Reject Your Fake Safety Plan."

Funding for the North American plan is based on how much production each retailer has in Bangladesh; those at higher levels will pay $1 million a year for five years.

So far, $42 million has been raised for the project. Ten percent of the funds will be set aside to assist workers temporarily displaced by factory improvements or if a factory closes for safety reasons. The money will also support a non-governmental organization chosen to implement it. A decision on the NGO should come within 30 days.

The 17 current members of the alliance include: Canadian Tire Corp Ltd ; Carter's Inc ; The Children's Place Retail Stores Inc ; Gap; Hudson's Bay Co ; IFG Corp; J.C. Penney Co Inc ; Jones Group Inc ; Kohl's Corp ; L. L. Bean Inc; Macy's Inc ; Nordstrom Inc ; Public Clothing Co; Sears Holdings Corp ; Target Corp ; VF Corp ; and Wal-Mart.

</div>

</li>

</ol>

<div>===

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/moyersonamerica/print/marianasclass_print.html

===

gangs:</div><div>

Some who had witnessed the trajectory of earlier movements

pointed out that unless this impulse to address power on a deeper level

was sustained and developed, efforts to address such matters as sweatshops

would eventually run out of steam. For example, by 1997, much

of the movement against sweatshops was already becoming ensnarled in

the question of how to respond to industry offers to create voluntary

standards known as codes of conduct. Generally such codes are accompanied

by third-party auditing plans and others measures that seem to

hold out the hope of enforceability. Yet experience has made activists

skeptical of such measures, since they typically enable corporations to

parlay a weak, unenforceable promise of better worker conditions into a

“no sweat” label or certification. For that reason, corporate attorneys

themselves have described codes as a way to “muzzle the offshore

watchdog” groups.</div><div>

The most high-profile code of conduct negotiations revolved

around the Clinton administration’s Apparel Industry Partnership, an

initiative that included a number of corporations, unions, and human

rights groups, and religious groups. After months of negotiations, most

of the labor and human rights groups balked at the terms of the code,

and dropped out of the negotiations. In the end, both the worker standards

of the agreement and the enforcement provisions proved disappointing.

Worker standards included wages below the living wage, and

a 60-hour work week. Meanwhile, the enforcement standards required

only 10 percent of a company’s factories to be monitored years, and

allowed companies to choose their own monitors. Most disappointingly,</div><div>

FIGHTING BACK 239

workers were offered no guarantee of freedom to form unions and bargain

collectively. Thus, the end product served to ratify the very conditions

that had led to sweatshops in the first placethe powerlessness of

non-unionized workers under the thumb of repressive governments like

China, Indonesia, and Vietnam.</div><div>

Debacles such as the Apparel Industry Partnership led many activists

to advocate even harder for strategies that addressed the root

sources of corporate power. One was long-time environmental and labor

activist Richard Grossman, who set out to engage fellow activists in an

extended exploration of the simple question so often asked by progressives:

Why do even the most vital citizen movements often fizzle out,

while the power of corporations keeps increasing?</div><div>

Grossman had been involved in the highly successful anti-nuclear

movement of the 1970s. He had seen the movement grow and find its

voicefrom timidly arguing in the late 1960s for safer nuclear plants to

assertively demanding “no nukes” ten years later. “But we blew it,” he

said, noting that decades after the peak of the anti-nuclear movement

there had still very little progress in the development of solar and other

alternative energy sources. The reason, in Grossman’s view, was that

the movement missed what should have been its main target, namely:

the way giant electric utility corporations are controlled.

Reflecting further on the long-term failure of the anti-nuclear

movement to fundamentally change the electric utility companies,

Grossman said, “The whole notion of what a public utility was created

to beto serve the peopleis so far from our historical and cultural

memory that the utility corporations like Pacific Gas & electric are

walking away not only with vast bundles of ratepayer cash, but with

even more special privilege to govern over us.”</div><div>

Grossman had been digging into American history, and in 1993, he

and Frank T. Adams had revived the tradition of the political pamphlet

with a recounting of the pre-Civil War history of the corporation in

America. Taking Care of Business: Citizenship and the Charter of Incorporation

revived the history of the charter system for regulating corporations.

Grossman, Adams, and others organized a research and</div><div>

240 GANGS OF AMERICA

education group known as Program on Corporations, Law, and Democracy

(POCLAD) that engaged in further research and educational seminars

on the early history of the corporation in the American republic.

POCLAD’s message was as straightforward as it was radical. In

America, the most basic principle of government is that the people are

in charge. Dealing with the problem of corporate power is essentially a

matter of getting people to wake up and assert their sovereignty.

Grossman wrote:

In 1628, King Charles I granted a charter...

</div>

</div>

<div>

And the CNMI invoices offer some more insight: Team Abramoff's point man for the White House was Tony Rudy.

The admitted felon was billing CNMI for meetings with the White House almost every week. Other Team members get meeting as well. And these are only the records for one of Jack's clients for 2001. I suspect there were many meetings.

(I'm sure that this was part of the information suppressed by John McCain when he picked which documents the Indian Affairs Committee would release to the public. I find it odd that not a single page of Abramoff invoices to the Tribes was included, but I digress)

Last Friday, the Bush Administration proved (once again) that, like the GOP Congress and Senate, they are incapable of investigating themselves. That was clear when Bush's DOJ Inspector General released a whitewashing report of Abramoff's influence on Guam.

To refute the report, I posted <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/7/4/02258/64011" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4; color: rgb(124, 71, 12); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">an Oct. 10, 2001 e-mail from Abramoff</a> that shows the overwhelming need for an independent prosecutor to investigate Jack Abramoff and all things connected to this scandal. Without such an appointment the Bush team may be able to run out the clock and Justice will be denied.

And Justice is long overdue, especially for the women who have been moved through a GOP protected system of sexual abuse, forced abortions, force prostitution and cruelty for the last twelve years.

We have to end this abuse that continues to this day, under our flag on the Mariana Islands.

Abramoff was a 25-year bag man for the GOP. For him and his pals, the suffering and abuse was OK because it helped the GOP take power.

We can not allow this to go on.

We need to keep the focus of the Abramoff scandal on what it is: a GOP sex scandal.

One great way to help drive that focus is to support H.R. 5550, <a href="http://www.house.gov/georgemiller/newmarianas.html" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4; color: rgb(124, 71, 12); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">the Human Dignity Act</a>.

The Bill would extend US labor, immigration and custom laws to the rogue US Territory: the Commonwealth of North Mariana Islands (CNMI). This is the legislation Abramoff, DeLay and the GOP have blocked for more than a decade. Justice is long overdue.

So far there ONLY 24 Members of Congress joining with George Miller as Co-Sponsors of this Bill. They are all Democrats.

EVERY Democrat should be a sponsor. We need to get on the phone, send out emails, letters and demand that every Democrat becomes a co-sponsor. And we need to apply the pressure to every member of the GOP caucus.

We need to make this an issue for every House race in 2006. The more we talk about it the less likely it is that the Bush political appointees will be able to sweep the Abramoff/DeLay abuse investigation under the rug (once again).

Every member of the GOP Caucus who worked to block legislation extending US labor, immigration and custom laws to CNMI should be put on the defensive. The crimes were real and the evidence has been presented to Congress since before 1994. And the abuse<a href="http://www.islandsbusiness.com/islands_business/index_dynamic/containerNameToReplace=MiddleMiddle/focusModuleID=5800/overideSkinName=issueArticle-full.tpl" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4; color: rgb(124, 71, 12); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">continues to this very day</a>. It is time to hold these folks accountable: both as co-conspirators and at the ballot box.  kos
=th franks wsjTwo weeks ago, the Washington Post sketched out a blueprint of the movement's leadership, naming the players and the organizations who have made the right's resurgence possible. It focused in particular on a shadowy but influential new outfit called the Conservative Action Project, which reportedly works to coordinate the movement's far-flung organizations, bloggers and publishers.What struck me about the Post's story was the familiarity of it all. In particular, I kept being reminded of that ultimate conservative insider, the now-imprisoned superlobbyistJack Abramoff, and the work he did on behalf of the Northern Marianas Islands, where garment factories churned out "Made in the USA" clothing under re-education camp conditions.The object of Mr. Abramoff's lobbying, you will recall, was to protect that peculiar economic arrangement from federal meddling, a task his firm accomplished by bringing politicians, staffers and media types on trips to the tropical Marianas and urging them to understand the situation as a matter of "liberty" versus big government tyranny.Today, as Washington conservatives scramble to stay atop the growing grass-roots right, the cast of characters is remarkably similar. For example, the "Team Abramoff" lobbyist who ran the Marianas trips program in the 1990s, Patrick Pizzella, is reported by the Post to be the "only paid staff member" of the Conservative Action Project. According to the Washington Times, Mr. Pizzella has also been "involved" in the drafting of the Mount Vernon Statement, a conservative manifesto that is meant to rally the tea-partying base.Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) also makes an appearance in the Post story, as ATR sponsored the first round of tea parties a year ago and as Mr. Norquist's famous Wednesday morning meetings for conservative power brokers have provided a fertile medium for the movement's networking.Just a few years ago, however, those meetings were infamous for having served as showcases for Mr. Abramoff's clients.And then there is Dick Armey, the former House majority leader who has returned in triumph to the public stage in recent years as the chairman of the FreedomWorks pressure group and the de facto leader of the tea-party movement. Last month Mr. Armey even attended the annual meeting of the Republican National Committee to speak on the tea partiers' behalf.As you may recall, Mr. Armey was once one of Congress's staunchest defenders of the Marianas way. Several of his aides traveled to the free-market paradise, and in 1997 Mr. Armey even wrote a letter jointly with former Rep. Tom DeLay in which he praised the islands' dedication to "the principles of free markets, enterprise, education choice, tax reform and other innovative approaches to governance."Behold your Third Great Awakening, America. Lobbyists, sweatshops, and the junkets designed by lobbyists to make sweatshops seem like liberty are, presumably, the sort of things tea partiers should have trouble with. Will the grass-roots nation call these gentlemen to account for their freedom flimflamming of the past?I wouldn't count on it. It is no secret, for example, that Mr. Armey was until recently something of a superlobbyist himself, ritually denouncing Washington's ways as he worked behind the scenes on behalf of multinational liquor conglomerates and international commercial real-estate concerns. His lobbying has been well-publicized since before the tea-party movement began. And yet criticism of Mr. Armey from the grass-roots right for that particular transgression remains difficult to find.The reason we haven't heard more in this respect, I suspect, is because deep down it doesn't offend. The history of conservative idealism is, in some ways, a history of lobbying, of ever-more inventive schemes to make politics answer to money. Each of the movement's succeeding bursts of idealism have led, ineluctably, to the doors of K Street.<ul style="line-height: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li>Timothy Noah, "<a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2138082/entry/2137077/" class="external text" title="http://www.slate.com/id/2138082/entry/2137077/" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Amy Ridenour, Abramoff Fellow</a>, Slate, March 28, 2006</li></ul><h1 class="title" style="line-height: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">-----
</h1><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hot_document/features/2006/thinktanks_for_sale/5.html" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hot_document/features/2006/thinktanks_for_sale/5.html</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="parbase image slate_image section" style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21px;"><div class=""><figure class="image inline left" style="margin: 0px 18px 0px 0px; float: left; width: 564px;"><img src_tag_name="src" title="1_123125_2137821_2137075_2137799_2137834_060314_abrmffdoc3_g_01" alt="Did I mention Dennis previously worked for Dick Armey?" src="http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/archive/2006/03/1_123125_2137821_2137075_2137799_2137834_060314_abrmffdoc3_g_01.jpg.CROP.original-original.jpg" style="border: 0px; vertical-align: middle; max-width: 100%;" /><figcaption class="caption" style="color: white; padding: 5px 18px; background-color: rgb(40, 27, 33);" /></figure></div></div><div class="parbase image slate_image section" style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21px;"><div class=""><figure class="image inline left" style="margin: 0px 18px 0px 0px; float: left; width: 564px;"><img src_tag_name="src" title="1_123125_2137821_2137075_2137799_2137834_060314_abrmffdoc3_g_02" alt="A joke. The op-ed praises Pitney-Bowes' exhibit yet dumps on Black History Month." src="http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/archive/2006/03/1_123125_2137821_2137075_2137799_2137834_060314_abrmffdoc3_g_02.jpg.CROP.original-original.jpg" style="border: 0px; vertical-align: middle; max-width: 100%;" /><figcaption class="caption" style="color: white; padding: 5px 18px; background-color: rgb(40, 27, 33);" /></figure></div></div><div class="parbase image slate_image section" style="color: rgb(40, 27, 33); line-height: 21px;"><div class=""><figure class="image inline left" style="margin: 0px 18px 0px 0px; float: left; width: 564px;"><img src_tag_name="src" title="1_123125_2137821_2137075_2137799_2137834_060314_abrmffdoc3_g_03" alt="" fee="Fee" would="would" be="be" more="more" apt="apt" src="http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/archive/2006/03/1_123125_2137821_2137075_2137799_2137834_060314_abrmffdoc3_g_03.jpg.CROP.original-original.jpg" style="border: 0px; vertical-align: middle; max-width: 100%;" /><figcaption class="caption" style="color: white; padding: 5px 18px; background-color: rgb(40, 27, 33);" /></figure></div></div><div class="text text-1 parbase section">


This is Abramoff's response to Ridenour. "CNMI" stands for "the <a data-linktype="External" href="http://www.cnmi.net/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 51); outline: none;">Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands</a>," a United States holding in the Pacific. Abramoff <a data-linktype="External" href="http://sopr.senate.gov/cgi-win/opr_gifviewer.exe?/1999/01/000/336/000336023|4" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 51); outline: none;">represented CNMI</a> and <a data-linktype="External" href="http://sopr.senate.gov/cgi-win/opr_gifviewer.exe?/1999/01/000/261/000261521|9" target="_blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 51); outline: none;">moneyed interests there</a> who were trying to deflect stateside complaints about labor conditions.Did I mention Dennis previously worked for Dick Armey?A joke. The op-ed praises Pitney-Bowes' exhibit yet dumps on Black History Month."Fee" would be more apt.This is Abramoff's response to Ridenour. "CNMI" stands for "the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands," a United States holding in the Pacific. Abramoff represented CNMI and moneyed interests there who were trying to deflect stateside complaints about labor conditions.</div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">--</div>===

</div>